Sarah Schlott
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Sarah Schlott

About Sarah Schlott

Welcome—I’m Sarah Schlott, a finance professional with over 18 years of experience in FP&A, strategic modeling, and operational finance leadership. I’ve built this blog to share practical insights, tested frameworks, and lessons learned from years spent supporting high-growth SaaS, fintech, and private equity-backed companies.

Entries by Sarah Schlott

ERP

Your ERP isn’t scaling — it’s staging a coup.

Hey there… You’ve just run into members-only territory. But don’t worry — joining is totally free. No credit card. No gotchas. Just instant access. When you join the FP&A Insider Community, you’ll get: Free resources you won’t find anywhere else Updates on new FP&A strategies and tools A front-row seat to conversations with operators who […]

October 14, 2025/by Sarah Schlott
FP&A

Your forecast isn’t broken. Your assumptions are drunk.

I’ve watched SaaS finance teams chase “precision” like it’s a religion — 4 decimal places deep in ARR projections while the renewal team is still updating Salesforce manually. Then the board asks why revenue missed by 8%. Cue the CFO’s favorite lie: “It was timing.” No, it wasn’t. It was hubris. We built our forecast […]

October 13, 2025/by Sarah Schlott
FP&A

The night before the board meeting, my forecast broke.

Not figuratively. Literally — the workbook crashed, the links went dark, and the ARR bridge pulled a vanishing act two hours before the deck was due. I stared at the screen like a pilot watching the dashboard flicker mid-flight. Here’s the part nobody writes about: the panic isn’t just technical. It’s existential. You start questioning […]

October 10, 2025/by Sarah Schlott
FP&A

We rebuilt our churn reporting last quarter—because it burned us in a board meeting.

It wasn’t the numbers that were wrong. It was the definition. Logo churn. Revenue churn. Gross churn. Net churn.Everyone in the room had a different interpretation, and somehow all of them were “right.” That’s the SaaS finance trap — you can’t manage what ten people define ten different ways. Our model looked great until we […]

October 9, 2025/by Sarah Schlott
FP&A

Your calendar isn’t full because you’re important. It’s full because you’re reactive.

Every SaaS CFO knows the feeling — twelve Excel tabs open, four Slack threads buzzing, an ERP sync failing in the background, and a board deck flashing “final_v8.” We call it “multitasking.” But really, it’s a slow bleed of attention disguised as productivity. Context switching is the silent killer of strategic thinking. It’s like trying […]

October 8, 2025/by Sarah Schlott
ERP

Your ERP isn’t scaling. It’s gaslighting you.

Every SaaS CFO hits this point — the system that was supposed to automate reporting now argues with itself every close. ARR doesn’t match CRM. Billings lag revenue. And the “integration” feels like a long-distance relationship. The board call where ARR missed by 10%? That wasn’t a forecast issue. It was your ERP whispering sweet […]

October 7, 2025/by Sarah Schlott
FP&A

Your forecast isn’t wrong. It’s just lying to you politely.

Last quarter, I watched a SaaS CFO defend a $1.5M ARR miss with a 30-tab model that looked like a Vegas light show. The formula math was flawless. The logic was delusional. Pipeline coverage was “strong.” Churn was “stable.” And bookings? “Seasonally delayed.” Translation: we built a castle on assumptions nobody questioned. I’ve seen SaaS […]

October 6, 2025/by Sarah Schlott
AI

The Hidden Cost of “Free” AI: What You’re Really Trading Away

Just read a LinkedIn post from: Kai Blakeborough That started with … “If you’re using an AI tool for free, you’re not the customer.You’re the product.” – Kai Blakeborough That’s not cynicism — it’s the modern business model. This week proved it beyond doubt: Meta announced plans to serve ads based on what users say […]

October 4, 2025/by Sarah Schlott
FP&A

Market Regulator Furloughs: Lessons for FP&A Oversight

Why a Government Furlough Should Worry CFOs The headline reads:“U.S. market regulators begin furloughs as federal funding lapses, curtailing oversight and delaying IPOs.” On the surface, it’s Washington politics.But the ripple effect is economic. When regulators go silent: IPOs freeze. Investor confidence falters. Transparency evaporates. It’s not that companies stop operating. It’s that the referee […]

October 1, 2025/by Sarah Schlott
ChatGPT, FP&A

AI for Account Reconciliations: Automating Month-End Close with ChatGPT

Why AI for Account Reconciliations Speeds Up Month-End Close Every controller knows the pain: reconciliations eat hours. Skip them, and the fallout is immediate — trust erodes with executives, auditors, and even your own team. AI isn’t replacing reconciliations. It’s making them faster, cleaner, and more audit-proof. What ChatGPT Adds to Account Reconciliation Workflows Unlike […]

October 1, 2025/by Sarah Schlott
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